For the second time in thirty years, the entire world has fallen asleep...
Thirty years after the Greymen caused the decimation of her people, high school drop out Rain Collins spends her days learning to pickpocket and hold her booze. Yet she long...
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Regressives and humans mingled amongst the wreck of rubble that had once been the grand hall of Sanctuary, which would serve as our staging area for the coming battle. While the humans among us geared up and fell in line and quivered gently with fear, the Regressives manipulated the haphazardly strewn rocks into rigid columns and beams behind which we could take cover when the Masters came.
"It won't help," Icarus said as he formed a particularly roughly hewn boulder into a sturdy bunker. "The Masters will smash through these rocks as if they're made of styrofoam; not that they'll need to break them. They won't even need to breach the hall to attack."
"I think they will," Beth whispered to Kayle and I as we crouched together behind a column of stone near the back of the hall. "They'll want to. They call themselves the Masters. They've been projecting their attacks into our dreams, showing off. The Regressives have been their greatest threat so far. They'll want to look them in the eye, destroy them face-to-face. They'll want the Regressives to see, to know who beat them. And they'll want to project the assault with as much detail as possible to whoever remains." She sighed, then said to herself, "If anyone does."
"Somehow, that doesn't make me feel better," Kayle said.
I nodded. Open combat against the Masters did not feel like a preferred option, no matter the alternative.
"It's a chance at least," Beth said. "Face-to-face, the Regressives might be able to put up enough of a fight to save some of us. Or maybe some of themselves. That's the main thing: we need to keep the resistance alive no matter what.""
Once the Regressives' protections were prepared and the rest of us had suited up, my father, Billy, and the other farmhands gathered at the head of the hall, where the entrance used to be. From the other end of the hall, I could not make out the words of the barked orders, but I could hear the tone, and I could see their faces, set in determination. Together, they stepped in front of the Regressives' front line, lined up a ten yards from the pile of rubble that had killed the Speaker, readied their weapons.
A low rumble reverberated through the rocks, vibrating through the hall. I could feel the pulse of the sound in my bones, in my chest. It grew louder, threatening to bring down the already fragile walls of Sanctuary onto our waiting heads.
And the wall burst. From where the entrance used to be, the pile of rubble exploded outward. I watched as an oblong boulder snapped forward and launched the pile, tumbling end over end into the small hole in the front of my father's mask.
The large rock was pointed on one end, and that end made contact with his eyes first. It pushed through and out the other side before the weight of the rock pushed him over. He landed on a slight angle with his head a few inches from the ground, supported by end of the long rock.
Billy and the other farmhands fell on him, pulling the rock with all their might. It was too heavy, I could see from where I sat with Beth clinging to my chest, but it was too late anyway. I had already seen my father die.
"It's over," I said.
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